Coming Home
by gaylock
Summary: The Doctor loves oranges and adventure, and Clara can't help but get dragged along. This is a story where Clara never knew 11, and doesn't meet the Doctor until he's regenerated into 12. Whouffaldi, mostly adventure and fluff.


**Coming Home**

 **AN:** This is my first Doctor Who fic, so don't hate me if it's no good. That said, this will be a WHOUFFALDI story, because I adore Twelve and Clara. Sorry Whoufflè shippers, but if you don't like it, don't read it.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters or DW universe, and I'm making no money from using them. If I did own them, Clara would have got with Twelve a looong time ago.

 **Warning:** slowburn, very VERY slowburn, possibly eventual smut, mostly angst and drama though...probably some swearing, and maybe a tad of violence, just to spice things up.

CHAPTER ONE

The first time Clara saw the strange man, he was peeling an orange and sitting in her kitchen.  
...maybe I should explain myself a bit better. And back up a bit, just to clarify.

Clara Oswald, age 23, lived a normal life in a normal part of London. She had normal neighbours, a normal cat and taught english at the normal middle-school three blocks from her normal flat. Every day she'd get up at 6:00 exactly, take her usual twenty minute shower, get dressed, eat a quick breakfast and grab her purse, pre-prepared lunch, and her cellphone before feeding her cat and jumping in her car. She took the same route each day, parked in the same spot, and walked into the building at exactly 8:00 each morning. She would spend the next fourty minutes going through that day's lesson plan, peeking into the office to say hi to the secretary, and checking her mailslot for any possible notices. She would then sit in her desk, wait for the first class to file in and take roll call. Then she would write the first task on the board, point to the students books, and watch them read the next few chapters of their text.

This went on until lunch at 12:00, when she would shoo the students out of her class and grab her lunch and her purse before making her way towards the staffroom. She sat in the same seat, crossed her legs in the same direction, and chatted with the other English teachers until 12:27 exactly. At 12:27 Daniel Pink, the Physical Education and Math teacher would arrive and sit down on Clara's right, before taking out a book and slowly consuming his sandwich.

The next ten minutes would be spent in relative silence, as all the teachers either ate, or watched Daniel Pink. Daniel, better known to his colleagues as Danny, was an enigma in the small school of normal, boring teachers. He was a former soldier, he was coloured, but above all else he was incredibly attractive. So every lunch hour, once ten minutes of silence had passed, Clara Oswald would turn to her right and start up a friendly and flirtatious conversation with Danny. She would twirl her hair, smile and laugh, and lean towards him slightly, drawing his eyes towards her breasts. Once the bell rang at 1:00 signalling the end of lunch though, Clara would stand up, grab her purse and lunch, and walk out to continue teaching English to unnapreciative students. Sometimes she left in the middle of a conversation, having to cut Daniel off with a regretful smile. Sometimes he joined her on her way back to the classroom, and sometimes she wished he would stay. Once, she even thought of asking him out for drinks, but in the end, she never did. He would chat, she would flirt, he would walk her back and that was that. She sometimes felt wistful, felt that she was missing out on something, but she also knew she was too busy in her life, too busy with herself, to really have a relationship.

So, on April 4th, at 3:00 when school let out, Clara gathered her things and made her way to her car. She put her purse on the seat beside her as she always did, pulled out of her regular parking spot, and made her way down the same route as always back home. All in all, the day hadn't been any different than any other. That is, right up until she opened her front door and stepped in. See, Clara's entire life could be described as normal. It was quiet, repetative, and absolutely lacking in anything strange or new. But Clara Oswald herself? Now, her neighbours might call her normal. Her colleagues might as well. Heck, it possible her dad and her stepmom may even call her normal. But her cat? No way. According to her cat, who at this point in Clara's life could claim to know her best, Clara Oswald was anything but normal. True, she drove a normal car and ate normal food and worked a normal job. But Clara was one of the rare humans who was made for a life of adventure.

And so it was, on that fateful April afternoon, Clara Oswald met a stranger and found her life being turned upside down, inside out, sideways and upways and every-which-way.

•

The first time she saw the strange man, he was peeling an orange and sitting in her kitchen. Now, if Clara had been her completely normal neighbour Diana, she might have shrieked and ran back out to call the cops. If she had been her completely normal neighbour Bill, she might have grabbed the baseball bat she kept by the door and beat him with it until he left. But because she wasn't Diana, nor was she Bill, Clara did neither of those things. Clara Oswald, who was not completely normal, walked up to him and said, "Fancy sharing that orange?"

The strange man looked up and scowled at her. "Who are _you_?" His voice was deep and his accent a thick Scottish brogue. He spoke in quick bursts of sound, like there wasn't enough time for all the things he needed to say.

Clara placed her purse on the kitchen counter and put her hands on her hips. "Clara Oswald. I live here." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Who are _you?_ "

The strange man waved a large hand in the air awkwardly, before popping a bit of orange into his mouth. "I'm nobody, and you're Clara Oswald. You _live_ here."

Clara's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Yes, I just said that."

"Fascinating." The strange man's thick eyebrows wiggled and he spun around. Clara watched his coattails swirl through the air and thought vaguely to herself, _do real people actually still dress like that?_

"What's fascinating?"

He stopped spinning and pointed at her. " _You're_ fascinating!" He leaned forwards to peer at her, and Clara was able to see his eyes clearly for the first time. They were a stormy grey, like thunderclouds before the rain starts to pour. "You're fascinating! Are you fascinating? Why are you fascinating? _Clara Oswald_ , _who lives here_. Why you, why here, why _now_?"

Clara raised her eyebrows. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to answer the question or not, but took a shot at it anyways. "Um...I don't know?" She crossed her arms in front of her chest defensively.

The strange man grinned suddenly and tossed the orange at her, rushing out of the kitchen with a shouted, "Neither do I!" thrown over his shoulder.

Clara jolted backwards and fumbled with the mostly peeled orange. She watched him rush out of the room, her eyes wide and her brain whirling. "Wait! Who did you say you were, again?" She ran after him, the orange clutched in her hand.

"The Doctor!"

Clara ran out her front door just in time to see him dissappear into a strange blue phone box that was on the sidewalk outside. She yelled out, "Doctor _who_?" but the door to the phone box had already slammed shut. It began to emit a strange sound, before it vanished into thin air. Clara held the orange tightly, cradled against her chest, and tried not to hyperventilate. _What just happened?_ She asked herself, trying desperately to sort out the last ten minutes of her day. She stood there, the illusion of her normal life shattered by a visit from a strange man ( _The Doctor_ , her brain supplied rather _un_ helpfully) with a vanishing blue phone box. Clara glanced down at the orange in her hand, and after a moment of looking, frowned.

"What kind of a person steals someone else's orange, and then only eats _part_ of it?"

•

"Why are you in my kitchen? Why is that on fire? You don't even _live_ here."

The second time Clara saw the strange man with the vanishing phone box, he was sitting at her kitchen table, once again peeling an orange. She barely blinked when she saw him, just deposited her purse in its usual place and fished out her phone. Sitting next to him was the new toaster she had bought just the week before. She watched in despair as the plastic sides melted slowly from the heat of the flames which rose from the top. A piece of burnt toast sat on a plate next to the strange man's elbow.

He looked up and grinned at her. "Clara Oswald! Fancy meeting you here," he pushed the toast towards her slowly. "I made you some toast, thought you might be hungry." He nibbled on a section of orange and smiled.

She looked down at the blackened toast in disgust. "Uh, thanks? I guess?" She sat down at the table across from him, ignoring the plate in front of her.

The man stared at her for a moment, before gesturing down towards the toast. "So? Go on, eat it." He smiled at her encouragingly.

Clara's nose wrinkled and she shook her head. "It's burnt," she pointed out to him as politely as possible. "Like, really burnt."

He looked down at it for a moment and frowned. "Ah, yes, well." He flapped a hand at the burning toaster. "I may of had a bit of trouble with your toasty-making-machine-thingy. I turned it on and it just...whoosh!" He flapped both hands in the air above the toaster dramatically.

Clara stared critically at her burning appliance. "Yeah, I can see that." She sighed before standing up and unplugging it. "Well, it was lovely while it lasted," she muttered to herself, and promptly doused it with water to put out the flames.

The strange man spluttered. "Why'd you do that?"

Clara looked at him. "Seriously? It was on fire. Like, on _actual_ fire!" She stared incrediously at him, the toaster in her hands.

He shook his head regretfully. "Well you could have _waited_ a moment. I wanted to roast marshmallows!" He reached down under the table and pulled out an unopened bag of jumbo-marshmallows. He tossed them onto the table with a scoff. Clara just stared at him, her brown eyes wide and her mouth open in disbelief. _Is this guy_ _ **serious**_ _?_ She thought to herself. How had someone like her, someone who had up to this point led an entirely normal and quiet life, found themselves saddled with a sassy, confusing, totally unreal man with a vanishing blue-box of seemingly Scottish descent.

In all reality, it was seemingly a coincidence that had first landed the stranger at her doorstep (or more accurately, her kitchen table.) He had been minding his own business while reading (napping), in his blue box (which Clara would later learn was a floating, portable home of sorts called the TARDIS) when all of a sudden it started to shake and spin and make a great big grinding noise.

The man had, _somehow_ , slept through the entire debacle. So imagine his surprise when, after looking out of the window and expecting to see a lovely view of Jupiter's moons, he found himself staring out at a grey and dreary London street on an equally grey and dreary London day. He had examined his blue box extensively; he searched it up and down, sideways and diagonally, forwards and backwards for any sign of what might have happened. Then, after concluding his search with no results whatsoever, he did it again. And again.

And again.

After the fifth search came up with similar results (that is to say, none at all) he gave up; whatever the reason, the TARDIS had picked that specific time and place. And he wasn't fooled by lack of evidence - he knew there was a reason, because there was always a reason. He just wasn't sure what it might be. And so, the man gave the interior of the blue box one more searching glance, before hopping out to take a look around his location. As the door shut behind him, a screen on the TARDIS's navigation system fizzled on, showing the image of a young woman with blonde hair with a wide smile and a blue leather jacket, before it fizzled out and went black.

Completely unaware, the man observed his surroundings and noted a lovely black and grey cat sitting in the window of the building he was parked in front of. Seeing nothing else worthy of his attention, and being well past tea time, he decided to enter the house with the cat and see what would happen. Had he searched his home for clues a sixth time, or had he not been napping at the time of travel, he may have understood what his mysterious journey was really all about. But since the world doesn't work in 'what if''s, and the man _hadn't_ done either of those things, he was left confused and intrigued.

Which is just what the beautiful blonde woman had wanted.

Because despite appearances, the landing of one blue TARDIS in central London on April 4th, was nothing short of a pre-meditated set up, of the sort concerned parents or nosy siblings usually purpetrate. The blonde woman, whom was known in another universe (similar but distinctly _not_ the same as this universe) as Rose Tyler, had spent years watching the strange man, waiting for him to find happiness and love and permanent companionship. Unfortunately, she had been constantly dissapointed; he had gone through many companions and friends, but they never worked out. His happiness, no matter which of his many faces it took form on, was always fleeting and quickly followed by intense sorrow. It was at those times, when the man would travel alone, never really living and always falling deeper into a guilt and regret filled hole, that Rose Tyler would watch over him.

Seeing him, so unhappy and alone, made her feel a horrid guilt of her own. It drove her to work out a way for him to always have someone at his side, always be with a friend, a companion. She worked hard and non-stop, trying to put a smile on his face and a hop in his step, trying to get rid of the all consuming blackness she knew plagued him. His was not a life best lived in solitude, she knew. And so, year after year, companion after companion, Rose Tyler worked hard to find the perfect person for him to travel with.

First there had been Donna Noble, a bossy and absolutely brilliant woman with ginger hair and a loud personality. Donna was a gift from God's Rose didn't really believe in; everything about her fit perfectly with the strange man's personality. She had a temper when he was calm, and was calm in the face of his panic and anger. She was loud when he was quiet, and quiet when he was loud. She challenged him unlike anyone else, and found him lacking in all the ways that were most important. She made him human again, even if just for a moment.

But then, after her first taste of abnormality, of magic and adventure and changing the world, Donna Noble said, "No thanks," and let him go.

Then there came Martha Jones. Martha was smart, and scientific, and absolutely enchanted with the strange man and his strange science and his strange life. She followed after him like a puppy, like he was her God. And in a way, he was. He took her from her world of logic and science, and swept her up in a world of dreams she'd never dared to dream. He showed her new things and old things, big things and small things, good things and bad things, and she loved every moment of it. But there were lines she would not cross, and there were lines he would not cross. Their lines did not match up, and eventually she left to move in her own direction, filled with new knowledge and beautiful discoveries.

And then Donna came back. Rose Tyler had not seen that coming, not at all, not even from her periphreal. She sat back and watched in amazement as Donna Noble stepped into Adipose Industries at the same time as the strange man. She watched as their paths crossed, and they reunited. She watched as Donna, who would describe herself as nobody, as "not important", saved his life just by being Donna. Rose watched as Donna Noble, bossy and loud, full of anger and indecision and self-loathing, dragged the man behind her on their journey, on their adventures. And Rose Tyler, for the first time in a long time, thought that maybe she had succeeded. That maybe she had finally found the one person who matched the strange man perfectly. Donna brought something out of him that Rose had thought she would never see again; the most human side he possessed. Donna, with her demands and her quirks, turned anger and pain into tools for good, took something broken and gave it a new purpose where it's cracks didn't matter anymore. She made him remember himself, and as a result she made it so that his sadness could be a shared burden. Of all the people in his past, and all the people in his future, Donna Noble would grow to know the man the best. She saw into him, straight past his masks and into the deep and raw places he worked so hard to hide from ordinary people. But she was anything but ordinary, and together they were extraordinary; they were symbiotic, they were flawless, they were harmonious.

But good things don't last, and despite the fact that the man was happy, and had found his best friend in all of the universes, Rose saw the ending coming and restarted her search. And though, of all the companions before and the companions to come, Rose would become closest to Donna Noble, she knew that after Donna said goodbye that that was it.

For a while after, Rose let herself drift in sadness and regret. She mourned the loss of Donna, not only the best companion she could have found, but someone she considered a friend. She regretted her part in Donna's pain, regretted that there hadn't been more she could have done. And she felt listless, because there was no way she would ever find someone equal to the sassy and sarcastic woman. But eventually, feeling sorry for herself got old, and she started in on another search, scouring time and space for the next person.

And after a few years, when she was about ready to give up, Rose Tyler found her. Or, more accurately; them. There was a small group of people, two girls and a boy, whom she knew would be the next companions. She immediately signalled the TARDIS and transmitted the new destination and time, knowing that the man had been alone for entirely too long. Only, instead of sending the TARDIS on a collision course with the new companions, the blue box spiralled out of her control and ended up at the same location, only ten years earlier than she had requested.

The strange man, now with a new face, found himself crashing into the back garden of a little girl with red hair and name like a fairytale. Amelia Pond, eight years old and already world weary, was entirely unsurprised to learn that there were entire worlds out there that nobody new about. Rose watched in horror as the man decided to take an eight-year-old girl with him into time and space and everything in between. _There is no way,_ Rose thought, _that Amelia Pond will survive the sort of life he is offerring her._ The strange man she had known in her own time, with a different face hiding a little less pain, would never have thought to take a child with him on his crusader's life. But this man? This man, who had delt with the loss of his best friends, and months of time alone? He could, and if he had his way, would, take Amelia Pond with him, despite knowing the dangers that lurked.

So Rose did the only thing she could; she forced her way into the TARDIS mainframe and changed the year manually, so it would take the man, his box, and all his danger and magic and promises into the little girl's future.

There, twelve years past when he had wanted to come, the man arrived in the exact same location. Only now, young Amelia called herself Amy; she had become jaded and suspicious and alarmingly grown-up. Rose felt relief when the man and the now older girl managed to work out their differences. She saw the young man from her search, but the second girl (who, despite not yet knowing _who_ she was, she somehow knew was important) was nowhere to be found. Watching the smile on the man's new and boyish face, Rose decided that Amy and Rory were enough. That the second girl, should she ever decide to appear, could only make things better, and that was nothing to worry about.

The thing Rose wasn't yet aware of, though, was that the second girl was Melody Pond, and that she was _very_ important. Melody Pond, later to be known as River Song, was not only Amy's best childhood friend, but also her and Rory's lost daughter. Had Rose been aware of the divided and backwards timelines that criss-crossed and connected with Amy, Rory and the man on one side, and River Song on the other, she might not have been so eagre to get the man to them. Because not only was River Amy and Rory's daughter, but she would also become the woman who would marry and kill the man, although both happened at very different times and the death was not permanent.

As it was, Rose let the man fly off with the Pond girl, making trouble and saving lives as only he could do. Eventually Amy and Rory got married, River's story came out into the light, and Rose expected everything to go up in flames. Only it didn't; life went on as normal (or as normal as one could get, flying through time and space in a blue space box) and somehow Amy and Rory survived. Time and time again, the couple made it through exploits with the strange man. And though it wasn't obvious, Amy understood a great amount about the man and his past, despite never being told. She herself was an orphan, forgotten and alone. She understood his pain, his loss, his need to fill the emptiness with brightness and noise and movement.

It was all quite beautiful while it lasted, to tell the truth. Amy and Rory grew old together more than once, they had a beautiful daughter and some of the best friends they could have ever wanted. They lived full and wonderful lives, beside the people they loved most in the world, and they didn't regret a moment of it. But when push came to shove, and Amy was left with a choice, she chose Rory instead of the man. She made the choice Rose was never able to make, the one she still couldn't make, and Rose wasn't sure whether to be impressed or disgusted. On one hand, she understood; Amy had loved Rory more than anything, had wanted to live the rest of her life with him beside her. But standing where she had been, between her husband and the man, her daughter, and a life of wonders among the stars...Rose knew what she would have chosen. And because of what she saw it do to the man, she wished Amy could have chosen the same.

After Amelia Pond, after fishfinger's and custard, after the Pandorica, vampires, angels and dying, the man reverted back to his depressed state. Solitary, he wallowed in self pity in that dreary in between place where clouds sit to block the stars from view. He parked his TARDIS and almost never travelled down into humanity. He sat above the world, incased in his lonely cloud, staring out into the sky. He searched the stars constantly with his eyes, as if looking for something he had lost, something he knew was waiting for him, if only he could find it. And maybe that's why he travelled, he thought to himself. Maybe that's what he was doing, fighting monsters and saving lives up there in the great wide world; maybe, just maybe, he was searching for something, someone, who needed him. He shrugged his musings off, because honestly, what could possibly be waiting all these years, all this time, for someone like him? Who, after all his friends, all the people he had found and then lost, could possibly be better, last longer, mean more? And so he sat there, in isolation, waiting for the day when his face would change and he could put this part of his terrible past behind him forever.

Little did he know that Rose Tyler was searching high and low for that certain person, the one who would be able to save the man from his future as well as from his past. She watched from the screens in the TARDIS, saw his sadness and pain, and knew she didn't have much time left. Rose knew that if she didn't find the one, the person who would truly know the man, that he would fail to survive as he was, and lose himself to the stars forever.

And so it was, on that fateful April 4th (as I've said before), the man sat inside the house of a stranger, chatting with a cat and wearing a face he hadn't yet gotten to know. The cat was a lovely thing, if a bit tempermental (most cats are) and they talked about everything from mice and the weather, to what new programs were decent on the telly. They chatted until the cat had to leave for his scheduled liason with the Siamese across the street, and the man re-located to the kitchen. He sat there at the kitchen table, peeling an orange he had plucked from the fruit bowl on the counter, until 3:18 exactly. For at 3:18 on the dot, Clara Oswald stepped into her house after a long day of teaching English to children, and found him seated as he was.

•

AN: I know this is a bit all over the place, but I sort of wanted it like that since the Doctor is pretty scatterbrained. Hope you liked it, review if you want more:) Also give me ideas, since I don't really know what adventures they're gonna go on yet.


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